


Awake

by the_dala



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:04:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_dala/pseuds/the_dala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McCoy takes care of Kirk, whether he's hurting from a bar fight or the remnants of his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Baby's first Star Trek fic, originally published on Livejournal 5/9/09.

McCoy generally had decent powers of observation – he’d have made a poor doctor otherwise – but it took him awhile to realize something was wrong. Jim skipped a day of classes, which wasn’t unusual in and of itself; but he spent the self-appointed free time reading. McCoy informed him that he was holding the data pad too close to his face, then asked what was so interesting. Brow furrowed with concentration, Jim shrugged.

“Nothing important,” he said, switching it off and dropping it on the mess table. He drained his glass of water and grinned at McCoy over the rim. “Let’s go out tonight, Bones. We can celebrate running another flight sim in which I performed magnificently and you managed to keep your breakfast down.” McCoy scowled at him and swiped his roll.

There was nothing unusual about the bar they settled on. Although McCoy would have preferred one of their regular haunts nearer to campus, he let Jim drag him to a seedier dive. The drinks were cheaper and Jim’s charms more effective on the local girls than on the cadets, which would save McCoy the trouble of dragging his wobbly ass home. He took his sweet time about it, though, knocking back shots of whiskey at twice McCoy’s rate as usual. The leggy brunette he finally honed in on didn’t seem to mind, but her boyfriend did.

_Wouldn’t consider the weekend started if he hadn’t_ , McCoy thought with exasperation as he slipped a little extra into their tip.

The guy was drunk and slow, if enthusiastic. Jim was coming top until some beefy witnesses began to wade into the fight. One of them wrenched Jim’s arm so hard that McCoy could imagine the sound of protesting muscle and joint even if he couldn’t quite hear it. He decided they’d had enough for one night. Ducking under a wayward blow, he gripped Jim around the waist and hauled back for all he was worth.

Jim twisted around, his eyes flat and hot, and decked him.

“Fucking idiot,” McCoy muttered as he popped Jim’s arm back into its socket. Blood was still trickling from his nose onto both their shirts. Jim hissed in pain, which might have been satisfying if he'd actually learned his lesson this time. McCoy had his doubts. “I should’ve left you there to get picked up by security. One more strike and they’ll set you back a semester, maybe even a year.”

“Nah, they love me,” Jim rasped. "If they set me back, it's only because they wanna keep me around a little longer." He stumbled back, coat swinging from his elbow. The data pad he’d been reading earlier fell out of a pocket. Swaying dangerously, Jim bent to pick it up.

McCoy’s lip curled; one corner was smeared with something dark and foul-smelling. “Just leave it, you can borrow mine.” Jim ignored him to begin the evidently trying process of stuffing the pad back in his pocket. McCoy sighed and tugged on his elbow on the non-dislocated side.

“That was some kind of misbehavior, even by your standards,” McCoy remarked when they had finally gotten back to his room. Although it was a shoebox, it was a single - and it had a ground floor entrance. No good could come of Jim wandering the corridors of the Academy in a bloody, drunken stupor.

Jim glared at him as best he could with one eye swollen shut. “Dunno why you had to interfere. I had those fucking bastards. Like this!” He thrust a clenched fist in McCoy's face. "Ow."

“Sure,” said McCoy absently, pushing Jim down on the small sofa and tugging his boots off. It took both of them to wrangle the shirt, stiff from sweat and blood as it was. McCoy frowned at the purpling bruises on Jim’s ribs, the angry marks ringing his injured shoulder. He reached for his med bag. “Sit still and let me –”

“Get off!” Jim knocked his hand aside, sending antiseptic cream flying.

Suddenly McCoy’s temper flared. Whatever had caused Jim’s bad mood, he could pass out and drown in his own vomit for all McCoy cared.

“Fine,” he snapped, turning away to strip his own dirty shirt off. He bumped his sore nose and cursed, kicking his jeans across the scant twelve inches of bare carpet. They were both too old to still be getting in bar brawls over ambivalent women, but one of them was _really_ too fucking old for it.

He was tempted to make the little prick sleep outside in the hall, but knew he’d catch hell from the other residents if they tripped over Jim in the morning. The dorm-issue couch was nearly as uncomfortable as the floor, really, especially for a body that had just taken a sound beating.

Which was why Jim was sprawled face down on the bed when McCoy returned from taking a piss.

McCoy stared for a moment, considering the effort it would take to rouse Jim now. He was already snoring. At last he flung Jim’s jacket down at him (Jim didn’t stir, of course) and collapsed onto the couch. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked.

After two sleepless hours, he was cursing himself again. And Jim. Mostly Jim.

At least the infernal saw had given it a rest. Not that he was quiet. He slept fitfully, pushing the bedclothes off, changing position every ten minutes. He was on his back now, one foot hanging off the bed and twitching faintly. Out of reflex, McCoy listened for his breathing – quick and shallow.

Jim jerked, his toes curled. McCoy got to his feet, muscles cramping but irritation fading. Usually Jim slept like the dead, but if he kept flailing like that he might do his shoulder further injury. McCoy really should have taken him to sick bay to have it examined.

“Hey,” McCoy said, leaning over the bed to shake him, thinking better of it and instead laying a palm on his chest. Whether from his touch or from whatever lurked in dreams, McCoy didn’t know; but Jim came awake with a hoarse cry. His hand shot out and grasped McCoy’s forearm like he was trying to catch himself from a fall.

McCoy caught his breath at the look in his friend’s eyes. Jim was staring at him but seeing something else entirely. His chest heaved, drawing too little air too quickly into his lungs.

“Easy, Jim, easy,” he whispered, curling his fingers over Jim’s white knuckles. He was speaking in the same low, even tone Jim used to talk him down from a flight-induced panic attack. Later he would realize that the words were the same as well. “You’re safe in here. We’re safe. She’s built strong.”

His lips started to regain some color. McCoy rubbed the back of his hand until it relaxed, leaving the arm he'd clutched red. He took one breath by force and held it, letting it out slowly.

“That’s it.” McCoy pressed two fingers under his jaw, taking his pulse.

Jim closed his eyes. “And anyway,” he murmured with a touch of bitter humor, “there’s not a damn thing you can do about it now.” McCoy had always found this hardest to accept, and apparently Jim did too, as he dropped his head between his knees, shuddering.

McCoy sank down beside him, feeling as wrung-out as if it had been his own nightmare.

“What the hell, Jim?” Seemed like he was always saying that. This time he actually got an answer.

The much-abused jacket had fallen on the floor. Jim nudged it with his bare toes, dislodging the data pad he’d refused to leave behind. He lowered himself crosswise across the bed, grimacing, while McCoy skimmed the open document.

It was Christopher Pike’s dissertation. McCoy knew it was often assigned to second-year cadets, although he’d never read it himself. He personally hated writing reports, but this was meticulously researched and competently written, even if the language was a little stilted for McCoy's tastes. Pike described the commissioning and construction of the _USS Kelvin_ with blueprints and diagrams that went right over his head. The second section chronicled the vessel’s early missions and importance within the historical context of the Federation. The last chapters were the slimmest in terms of straight text. Instead they were framed by shuttle images from the _Kelvin’s_ final mission and personal accounts from survivors, many of which Pike had collected himself.

He switched the screen off on a profile of the last captain, George Kirk’s handsome, open face burned across his retinas.

“Lights.”

He could feel Jim stiffen beside him. His bruises had gotten darker in just a few hours.

“Lights off,” he said, plunging them into darkness once more.

“Jim…”

“Let it go, man.”

McCoy was thinking about another night out several months ago, marking the one-year anniversary of his divorce. Jim had bought party hats and old-fashioned noisemakers and many, many drinks, claiming that they were ringing in McCoy’s own personal new year, and if McCoy didn't make some damned resolutions Jim would do it for him, and that would just be embarrassing for everyone involved. Later he kept his mouth shut while McCoy shed tears into his last few beers. They slept in Jim’s room that night, when the bar had finally closed at some horrific hour of the morning – shared the narrow bunk like brothers.

McCoy’s brother was gone, not unlike his wife. Except while Jocelyn was off on a permanent vacation with a banker and his two blond kids, Peter had gone down on his ship after an engine malfunctioned. Pete wasn’t anywhere at all.

“Jim, I think maybe we should talk about –”

He sat up suddenly, mouth twisted. “Shut the fuck up,” he said without heat. He kissed McCoy, who was too surprised to do anything but blink at him in the dim light. Jim took his head in both hands and kissed him harder, closing his teeth on McCoy’s bottom lip.

“I want to forget about it,” he said, low and rough. “I want you to fuck me until I do.”

This was turnabout with a vengeance. He wasn’t in his right mind, maybe, but when the hell was Jim Kirk ever in his right mind? All McCoy could say as Jim pushed him back, mouth warm and shivery on his neck, was a gasped, “Okay.”

Then he gasped again as his back hit the mattress bearing a full weight of lusty cadet, in pain this time. Jim pulled back, looking guilty. The cut on his lip had started to bleed anew and he wiped it away.

“Fucking couch,” McCoy grunted. Jim snickered, then winced as McCoy tugged on the recently dislocated shoulder, which he had somehow forgotten even though he’d set it himself.

“Fucking gorilla of a townie.”

“Which you deliberately provoked into kicking your ass.”

Jim pushed up on the good arm, straddling him. How had he managed to get naked so quickly? McCoy could only assume it was due to practice. Like a stealth bomber. Jim was something of a stealth fucker, as any number of impressionable first-year cadets could attest. Then Jim got his boxers off and McCoy stopped thinking about the girls Jim had conquered.

“How many times do I have to tell you,” said Jim breathlessly, rocking down against him, “that I was winning. That. Fight?”

“Now _you_ shut the fuck up,” McCoy retorted. He closed his hand around Jim’s erection, which helped. He’d have to remember that. What he couldn’t remember was the last time he’d been this hard, wanted someone this badly. Jim wriggled out of his grasp, leaned down and licked slowly at the head of his cock, blue eyes locked on his face all the while. Bastard. It wasn’t fair that he was so good at this and McCoy didn’t even _know_.

Jim surged up to attack his mouth again, heedless of the taste of copper on his lips. McCoy ran his hands over the bruises lightly, then a bit harder when Jim groaned low in his throat. They moved against each other, Jim’s legs spread wide and wanton, and McCoy began to wonder if he was serious about the whole fucking-unto-forgetting thing.

“Shit, do you have any…?” Jim panted, his thighs clenching around McCoy’s hips.

McCoy would’ve slapped his forehead if he could have spared his hands, because he actually did have condoms and some lube in the bedside drawer. Jim peered at him in astonishment when he produced them.

“They’re yours,” McCoy said with an arched eyebrow. The tube was rolled three-quarters of the way to the top like it was toothpaste (McCoy had kept it far away from the sink for that very reason). “When I was on that psychiatric retreat and you broke into my place because your roommate went on a one night stand strike.”

“So that’s where they got to,” said Jim with satisfaction, which grew into a wicked grin as McCoy fumbled with the wrapper. Not because his hands were shaky, because hands that stitched skin back together and set broken bones did not shake at the prospect of mindblowing sex. Even if it was sex he'd never had with someone whose razor he had once shared.

To his credit Jim didn’t say anything, just took the condom and the lube to show him what to do. McCoy was almost content simply to watch him, head tipped back on the pillow, tongue flicking against his bitten lips as McCoy worked two fingers in and out. Almost – because when Jim’s nails dug into his wrist and he hissed, “ _Now_ ,” McCoy would’ve sooner jumped out an airlock than disobey.

“God, Jim,” he breathed as he pushed in. Jim gave him that bright smile: just another adventure. He had one hand on McCoy’s ass to press him forward, the other tight around his own cock. The angle was different from what he was used to – not bad but a little awkward, until Jim frowned and hitched one leg over McCoy’s braced elbow, kind of up on his shoulder. It was hell on his back yet easier overall - easier to thrust deep and make Jim bare his teeth, to lean down and kiss him with an open, hungry mouth.

He supposed he was doing okay, because Jim was pushing up against him and swearing, his hand working faster. That was good because McCoy wasn’t sure how much longer he could swing this. It was nothing like he’d expected, aside from the fact that he’d been unable to anticipate it at all. It was his instinct to quantify the difference even as he started to feel himself fall out of rhythm. He didn’t think it was fucking a man so much as fucking James T. Kirk, who could be one annoying, arrogant son of a bitch but most of the time – most of the time he was the best friend McCoy had ever had.

The only friend who ever grabbed McCoy’s hip and said, “Fuck yes – _fuck_ ” and came against McCoy’s belly, definitely. And that was it. He put his face into Jim’s neck and murmured his name, at the end. For all that he was the elder and for damn sure the more sensible, he followed Jim over the edge and he knew he’d do it again.

He stretched out next to Jim, both of them still, both of them quiet. McCoy was just this side of out cold when Jim said softly, “I never thought about it – how it actually happened. Mom always said he was a hero, but she didn’t talk details. No one did. I guess they didn’t want me to think about my dad blown into a billion pieces, scattered across empty black space. No grave, no marker.”

One hand lay half-culed on his chest, like a little boy in sleep. McCoy reached out and covered Jim’s fingers with his own.

“But the truth…the truth is I don’t think it’s such a bad way to go. Even in a dream where I'm afraid and screaming for him. I wish my mother hadn't had to watch, but I mean - it was a bad time, not a bad way. No one can ever take what he did away from him. Pike’s an asshole, but he gets it. He gets that what my father did twenty-three years ago still matters. It’s still _here_.”

_So are you_ , McCoy thought but didn’t say, because then Jim would look at him like he’d had too much to drink, which was rich considering the source and not something McCoy felt like dealing with at the moment. The story of the _Kelvin_ had meant a lot of things to a lot of people, but to McCoy it meant Jim Kirk in his life. If, at the end of his days, that was all he could say he'd left behind...well, he kind of figured it might be enough.


End file.
